When I lived in the UK there was a running documentary on a group of children born in the year 2000 called “Child of Our Time”. Among them was a precious set of twin boys called Alex and Ivo. Ivo was hopelessly in love with his twin brother, which completely won me over both to him and to his name. They said it Eye-vo, which makes me think that’s the usual pronunciation in England, if there is a “usual” pronunciation there at all. Maybe one to run past hubby 😉

Ivo is Ee-voh for me, as Ivan is ee-Vahn, but that’s my Russian ancestry showing. I could live with Ivan as Eye-van, barely. Ivo is jauntier but eye-voh defintely makes me think evil, so while I like it and will even suggest it to others (a lot of my friends are between 22 & 36, prime childbearing years) but Ivo will never grace my lists, despite that lovely -o ending. The Mr. would make “evil” jokes if I even brought Ivo up, I just know it. Philo was hard enough to sell! And of course the lovely Rufus sits high on our boys list. 🙂

Ivan is marvelously strong without being Thief or Hammer or some dumb celebrity attempt at masculinity and I think Ivo works if you pronounce the long I. Stands in good contrast to those “sensitive sons”.